Digital Declutter

With the sunshine comes the first wave of spring cleaning. Finally, it feels about time to hit the reset button and do a bit of tidying up in your life. While it's obvious that the important thing that needs sprucing and cleaning out is probably your home, your bedroom, your wardrobe etc., I do think in such a digital age, it's super important to declutter your online life too.

Most spring cleaning would involve donating old clothes and throwing out furniture and homeware that no longer "sparks joy" (I praise the Marie Kondo method so much, definitely watch at least one episode of her Netflix series to get the gist). However, I feel that decluttering our phones, computers and overall electronics is a good way to get organise and gain a little piece of mind too. So, I'm going to share my top 5 pointers to start tidying up your digital life. 

1) Social Media Cleanse 

I think the first thing to deal with is the social media apps and platforms you spend most of your time on, i.e. Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Blogger (& whatever else your heart desires). Start by unfollowing the accounts and people that you no longer relate to or whose content does not bring you joy (this phrase may seem cringey but its helpful to think about). Honestly, social media can be a exhausting environment on ones self esteem and you shouldn't leave instagram or twitter feeling rubbish about how you look or what you say. Remove all the negative influences in your online stuff, whether its people promoting those awful diet pills or teas or just hateful accounts in general. These may even be your "friends", there's no need to be constantly aware of the lives of people you no longer click with or frankly no longer care about. Additionally, go through your saved folders on Instagram and organise the pictures. I have categories for makeup looks, fashion and travel inspo, recipes I want to try and at the moment a folder dedicated to bangs because I am toying with the idea of a good snip to the fringe (I will reiterate the word toying so my flatmate doesn't throw me an intervention). You could do the same for snapchat memories and actually save pictures and videos that are important to you or make you laugh. God forbid the day the app crashes and you lose 2 years of magical memories, this is a genuine fear of mine.

2) Purge Your Photos 

This brings me to my next point; Purge. Your. Photos. I will admit I am one of those gals that don't believe one picture is ever enough. No, if I ask you to take my photo, I want options, angles, lighting differences...the works! But after, I've picked my favourites and posted it, these duplicates per say linger in my phone for an unforeseen amount of time. This is my every so often you should go through your albums and purge your pictures. Delete the duplicates, the unedited photos, the accidental bursts, the blurry drunken night out pictures and overall organise your albums. These days, you need a quick tough of a button to snap a photo meaning that they tend to build up quickly so why not free up some memory space and get rid of unnecessary photographs. You could attempt this with videos and photos in your snapchat memory too, I have a bad habit of saving every snap thinking I would like to post that later, or save it for my finsta or keeping ugly photos of my pals just in case but really it's always good to declutter.

3) Back Up Your Goods

Like I previously mentioned, I have an irrational fear of losing memories precious to me in the form of videos and pictures. This is why it's so important to always back up your electronic life. The amount of times I've lost or broken a phone and with that end up losing all the pictures of holidays, graduations, birthdays is too many times to count. It is an annoying task to manually back up your phone especially for someone who;s unwilling to pay for iCloud storage (me) but it will save you future heartbreak. I would say attempt to do it 2-3 months or whatever works best for you. These days its important for me not to just back my phone into my computer but also back my computer into a hard drive. I keep all sorts of uni assignments, lecture slides and notes, important documents etc. that perhaps may come in handy in future coursework or exams, in a hard drive for safe keeping.

4) Update Online Profiles

I for one don't do this often enough. It's a simple task that doesn't take long so I probably should do it regularly and not only just before I'm applying to something. Take some time to look through your LinkedIn profiles, your CVs/resumes and whatever else profiles you have and update them! Add any latest jobs/positions you've held or read some tips online and keep tailoring your CV to make sure it's the best it possibly can be. Similarly, hit up ol' LinkedIn and start connecting with people you know, get managers or coworkers to endorse your skills and basically just keep your profile looking professional and hire-worthy. This age many employers will probably scour your online profiles before even contacting you for an interview so make sure your online self represents the best version of you.

5) Attack Your Emails

I had a massive email cleanse the other day and maaaaan did this take longer than I thought it would. It took me a solid hour to get my inbox from 50 pages with over 1000 unnecessary emails to a solid 2 page inbox with the important information I need. I managed to clear up so much more storage on my Google account with that as well! Now I can happily use that extra storage space to back up holiday and family photos to easily share with others. It's important to also go through all the tabs on your account and delete everything. Spam, Unread, Social category, Promotion category, Notes etc. - delete every notification, promotion, bills, and whatever else you feel you don't need to keep. Then, remember to go to thee deleted email tab and permanently trash all the emails, this step is needed to clear up your storage space. I know this can be a very tedious task but taking an hour or so just to get rid of your email clutter will give you the satisfaction of a clean, organised inbox. From then onwards, every email you received you can easily delete once read or save in your organised folders. Additionally, this would be a good time to go through any of your email subscriptions you've joined over time and unsubscribe from companies and brands send out relentless promo every day. Keep only the ones you are extremely interested in and get rid of the rest. One hour of painfully attacking your emails will prove rewarding trust me!

Hope these tips helped. Happy tidying!!

Talk soon xx